IDF's new breach bomb designed to limit collateral damage
Combat engineering unit conducts exercise using device that contains minimum amount of explosive material needed to break into civilian buildings used by terrorists, while minimizing harm to innocent people; 'We don't want a Palestinian family sitting at home to be wounded,' says officer.
The explosive devices, which were developed by Israel's security industries, contain grams of unique explosives but are still capable of breaking through a barred window, a locked door and even a wall without causing collateral damage.
Yahalom's "Snowy Slope" sub-unit's combat soldiers completed the exercise over the past few weeks in the unit's facility in the center of the country.
The exercise was part of their training and also aimed to improve their readiness for a possible operation in the south—leading the IDF's combat battalions, maneuvering in Gaza in the depths of Palestinian territory on which the Hamas elite forces await in booby trapped structures as well as buildings with children and women which Hamas uses as human shields.
"Fighting in such a populated area is a extremely challenging, and a trained combat soldier is also required to know whether the buildings are booby trapped and choose the proper tools for breaking into place accordingly," a Yahalom officer said in a Ynet interview.
"We've lowered the amount of explosives to a minimum. In Operation Protective Edge, we had similar incidents during which soldiers were wounded breaking into booby trapped structures. Therefore, the skills required from our fighters in order to prevent incidents such as those are high," the officer elaborated.
"There are massive walls as well as sporadic construction that have no building standards, which makes the mission even more challenging," he went on to say.
"We don't want a fighter from our force to get hurt by shrapnel during an operation as a result of an explosion. Nor do we want a Palestinian family sitting at home to be wounded," the Yahalom officer explained.
The Snowy Slope sub-unit was established in the mid-1990's following the failed operation to rescue Golani Brigade Sergeant Nachshon Wachsman who was abducted by Hamas in 1994.
The IDF's goal was to train a unit whose entire purpose and expertise would be to break into a hostile structure quickly and securely while eliminating the enemy and rescuing hostages if needed.
Over the years the unit has acquired the ability to face the chemical threat posed mainly by Syria.
Israel is concerned that new chemical weapons, as well as those which remained after President Bashar Assad's army had destroyed most of them under American pressure as the Syrian civil war broke in 2011, will fall into the hands of terror organizations such as Hezbollah and will pose a direct threat to Israel in the next conflagration on the northern border.
A Snowy Slope combat soldier's training course lasts approximately a year and a half. The course is highly demanding and one of the longest combat soldiers undergo in the army.
"In the south, our fighters will have to deal with threats surrounding them from all directions—from altitude, from the air, from the ground and below the ground," the officer added.
"We need to be careful not to fall into traps and to have the ability to fight and break into hospitals and schools where the enemy hides."
